as we all know I recently got a new work phone and while I have mostly used it for work I have tried out some of the new features that I found in it. As my youngest brother has a note 2 and the program isn't on there I want to talk about an app called Sketchbook. Sketchbook allows you to take your S pen and basically drawn on the screen like it is a piece of paper. It gives you quite a few different "writing" utensils to choose from and even some photoshop like brushes. Which is right up my alley, a few years ago(around the time I got the targus case for my laptop) I also bought one of those old composition books, oh you know the one. If you're steadily inching closer to fogeyhood(shut it), it was one of those splotchy covered black books with the wide lines every teacher wanted you to have(that you would RARELY freakin use. That could have been video game money teach) or currently multicolored splotchy covered book. My plan was to write, sketch just do whatever came to mind while I was going about my day and fill in the book so that I could come home and transfer it to the blog or keep working on it later.
As my blog has been mostly empty for the last two years that OBVIOUSLY went swimmingly. one of the main problems was that while I wanted to do stuff with a pen in my hand I usually didn't have a damn pen. And those books I borrowed from the library, yeah I didn't have half the art supplies I needed to attempt the drawings and you can only go so far with a pen and and number 2 pencil. So that was such a screaming success that I kind of forgot all about it.
Fast forward to 2014 and the breaking of my old phone and the purchase of the new one. I actually found sketchbook after I found Pen.up these both appear to be Samsung apps so I don't know if they appear on the play store. Pen.up is a Samsung app that allows you to share original creations from your phone with others. Okay, I can share original creations cool.....(turns my head to speak loudly to an imaginary off screen entity) Uummmm creations from WHAT? I mean seriously it's a freaking phone, well a phablet who wants to see my goofing s-note pad doodles. To which of course I saw sketchbook later and gave it a whirl.
Now a moment of honesty these are not ALL of the doodles and sketches I did, these are mostly just the serious ones. The ones when I was actually trying to focus on what I was drawing instead of just dragging the stylus across the viewing surface(yes I am the type of person who just quickly doodles something and then leaves it possibly for later). This Chibi webhead over here, yeah he's on one of my many Marvel shirts. The webbing is crappy but if you go to Wally world you will see him and a bunch of his Marvel buddies in various silly poses. Now to be fair I don't think this is the single layer spidey I originally did. But I will get to why later. He doesn't look too bad, I was looking up at the shirt and honestly I had to cheat on the chest spider my eyes aren't that good and it was pretty freaking small.
Then after I had drawn Chibi spidey and a few other scribbles I remembered playing the game "Draw Something"(which is on the play store) and being challenged to draw Stimpy. I was like okay, I think I did a pretty decent job, thing is I had never attempted to draw Ren Hoeke. So I looked up a picture of Ren started scribbling it in sketchbook started playing around with the various color palettes and pencils, markers, etc and I mean he ain perfect but you can KINDA make out that it is Ren. The problem with working in a single layer, if you draw over something you will probably erase it. that is why there are a LOT of white spots in the colored Spidey and in Ren. The closer I got to some of my baselines, the more likely it was that I was going to erase them. so in the interest of preserving the image I decide to leave as little white as I could but leave some if it was necessary. Finding colors that I liked took a lot of trial an error, there is a LIMITED undo button that I used frequently.
Working with Layers
I have a good friend who is a Family Guy friend, we talk about it all the time. I wanted to draw Stewie because we always laugh about his craziness but Stewie has a slightly oddly shaped head, I had drawn Arnold in Draw Something before though and his "football head" is similar. So I decided to give Arnold another try to see how I did with it using a stylus. The main difference between Sketchbook and ANYTHING you saw me draw on Draw Something was that I used the edge of my fingers in draw something. I can't tell you which finger, most people swear I am kidding when I say that but it is true. I don't have a stylus per se for my tablet so the only thing I could use was my finger. I know some say those pics were pretty detail and to them I say thank you. If I could find a decent pic of it I would try my best to Eyeball translate it over. Now in my defense to all that crap in the background Anybody who has watched Nickelodeon over the years knows they have done some pretty crazy cut outs. This was my attempt at one. I also tried something new with coloring. Similar to a gradient layer in photo shop instead of fighting to carefully color in the characters, I just erased out the area that wasn't the color I was using on that fill layer so that it didn't cover anything that was not that layers color. Even the "whites of his eyes" separate layer. now the eyes themselves I fill in over a few layers with pencil and brush alike. Everything else yeah you don't see as much white now do you(mental side note I just remembered I forgot to draw the damn hand in). The crazy crayon scribble in the back is a combo of erasing out parts to connect with the bottom blue layer(which I made SLIGHTLY different than the hat), fake air brushing in some orange and trying to remember how to depth in a Nick.
As I went to see "The Amazing Spider-man" on opening night, I got Opening Night cup swag. I decided to TRY and draw the Spidey logo on the cup, yeah I still gotta figure out the layers and the brushes. Does it look similar to Spidey's new logo now that I put the blue behind it, sure. Is this actually supposed to be the Spider-man wall graphiti hell yes. I also have the damn leg ends too wide, but hey it was a first attempt drawing something by sight off a curved object. I may try again later. 
Another friend of mine saw "Hey Arnold" and asked if I could draw Helga from the show. To be honest I had never even attempted to draw any Hey Arnold characters before draw something and now with Helga I would have to try a different one. I just picked that slightly darker pink back ground to be doing something. I didn't want the bow to completely face it and at the time I didn't know if I wanted to do anything else with the shirt so viola. the bow is a slightly different color and her outfit kind of matches the wall. It was really fun, I think I capture the gist of the character, yes she does technically have either the longest write in history or else I put the rest of her hand in the wrong play but hey I think it looks pretty damn good. This was a hobby when I was younger and it feels nice to find out I may not be immediately awesome but I can still draw just a little.
Last but not least is a new Ren, I never did like the nose on the first one(it has better ears). The nose is still a little funky but I think I captured the rest of him in a decent manner. Once again a layer approach for both drawing and coloring. it allows me to add subtlety and shadow without worrying about erasing what is already there as well as well as keeping me from coloring out of the lines(something I suck at). It's a new toy and lots of fun, and it allows me to indulge an old hobby, without having to bring an entire art kit with me. And it also lets me share the pictures. So I can allow my friends to laugh at my silliness or see if I actually hit close to the mark.
I don't claim ownership of ANY of the characters I have drawn that are subject to copyright. I am just a guy, having fun, tripping the light fantastic, with some old "not doing my homework/classwork" activity.
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